Working with Old Age

This is a new course in School of Social Work Theory and Practice at IUC. There are many issues in social work that our courses do not cover. Hence we decided to put up a course that will answer to this gap and provide an opportunity for discussions of the topics otherwise neglected. One of such topics is old age. If the course will generate the interest we will keep it in the future.

The increasing and continually changing needs of the older generation are issues which have occupied professionals from various fields in recent years. For social work demographical changes pose a significant interest. Older people have moved from being a marginal concern in the middle of the 20th century, to one of central importance for social work in this century. The specific nature of social work lies in transversal understanding of older people, their needs, and in the assertion of the user as a partner in the helping process. The question is how social work is tackling with this challenge. What are values, roles, tasks and skills in social work with older people? Is social work with older people its new specialisation? We will try to find answers how social work can support individuals, families and communities to ensure that older people maximise their potential for health, well-being and social participation. With the focus on issue of specialisation in social work we will try to detect the most actual and challenging issues in working with older people and explore them promptly.

2012 Organising director:

Jana Mali, Faculty for Social Work, University of Ljubljana

Phone: + 386 13006232

Email: jana.mali@fsd.uni-lj.si

A SOCIAL WORK INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL Dialogue in Praxis can be found here.

Course lecturers:

Valentina Koljanin, University of Zagreb, CroatiaAna Štambuk, University of Zagreb, CroatiaJana Mali, University of Ljubljana, SloveniaVito Flaker, University of Ljubljana, SloveniaHimu Gupta, United KingdomAndreja Rafaelič, Faculty of Social Work Ljubljana, Slovenia